Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to computer software and, more specifically, to a web-based tutorial system configured to integrate a full featured application into a community enhanced web-based tutorial.
Description of the Related Art
A wide variety of software applications are currently available to end-users, including computer-aided design (CAD) applications, computer graphics applications, animation applications, word processing applications, and computer programming applications, among others. Despite advances in making complex applications easier to operate, learning how to use such applications can still be daunting. More complex applications, such as CAD and computer graphics applications, often have thousands of commands or functions to choose from, and multiple ways for an end-user to combine the different functions into workflows to complete a particular task. When using an unfamiliar area of such an application, even expert end-users may require assistance.
Often a user is unaware of the knowledge required to complete a particular task until the user is actually required to perform that task. Turning to the help provided by the software application is often unsatisfactory and typically requires a user to seek alternate help resources. Web-based tutorials have proven to be a popular help resource for learning how to perform unfamiliar tasks in complex software because the tutorials allow a user to walk through the steps necessary to complete a desired task. However, even the web-based tutorials have not always provided the assistance needed. At times the tutorial is too fast or skips steps. At other times, the subject matter covered in the tutorial is dissimilar enough from the users own subject matter, that the tutorial becomes ambiguous or unclear and the user is left confused.
In their current form, web tutorials are isolated from the applications that they support. A user is often left trying to correlate the dissimilar subject matter to the tasks the user is trying to learn. However, there are other users in the application community who have similar problems and may have even taken the web-based tutorial already. Some of these users in the community may have additional insight which may be helpful.
As the foregoing illustrates, there is a need in the art to provide a web-tutorial system that integrates a fully-featured application into a web-based tutorial and a more effective way to provide community feedback to enhance and improve the instructional information in web-based tutorials.